Pirate Bay Co-Founder Gets Two Years For Hacking And Fraud

by: June 21, 2013

A co-founder of the file-sharing website Pirate Bay has been sentenced in Sweden to two years in prison for hacking into a bank computer.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 28, was arrested in Cambodia last year after Swedish authorities issued an international warrant. He was convicted and sentenced Thursday for hacking Sweden’s Nordea AB bank and U.K.-based services firm Logica.

“The data intrusion has been very extensive and technically advanced,” the court said in its ruling.

Warg’s accomplice, Mathias Gustafsson, 36, was given a suspended sentence and ordered by the court to seek psychiatric counseling. The pair stole the personal data of thousands of Swedes and then published the information online.

The Swedish court also convicted Warg of fraud and attempted fraud for hacking into bank accounts and trying to steal $860,000 from Danish accounts.

“Throughout the trial, Warg and his accomplice did not deny that computers they owned were used in the attacks. However, they claimed that other people used these machines remotely to break into the computer systems. The pair declined to name who these other people were.

“Despite their claims, forensic experts who testified in the trial said data found on the computers used in the attacks showed that Warg and Gustafsson were the perpetrators.

“Warg is already serving a one-year sentence for a 2009 conviction on copyright violations in connection with Pirate Bay — a peer-to-peer file-sharing site that allows users to download and share pirated music, movies and games. Two of Warg’s Pirate Bay colleagues also were sentenced to 12-month terms.”